Dreams
by greenstuff2
Summary: A ONE SHOT as CJ suffers from nightmares a year after his recovery from his injuries ...
1. Chapter 1

He watched her throw off her body armour and her helmet and start to walk towards the little girl with the suicide vest under her clothes as he started screaming at her to stop and to come back, but no matter how loudly he shouted or how hard he tried he couldn't make her hear him, he couldn't make her take any notice of him. It seemed as if there was no sound at all coming out of his mouth, as she waved her hand at him and told him that he was scaring the little girl and to let her deal with it. He watched, impotent, powerless to do anything to stop it as the bomb disposal guy walked in slow motion towards them and the suicide bomb detonated causing a huge explosion that red-misted both her and the little girl, and he woke up and shot bolt upright in bed, his heart hammering and his naked body bathed in the cold sweat of terror as he fumbled for the bedside lamp, desperately needing to reassure himself that it had, once again, been just a dream.

There was enough light from the lamp on the bedside table to let him check around the room and reassure himself that he wasn't in some hot and dusty, tension filled market square in Afghan, that he hadn't just watched the girl he'd loved get blown to bits, he was in an anonymous airport hotel. He rubbed his hands over his face and fought against his compulsion to get out of bed and put all the main lights on, not only to chase away the rest of the nightmare but to stop any possibility of him dropping off to sleep again which would allow the nightmare to return as so often happened when he had one of these dream filled nights.

Small noises and movements made it impossible for him to any longer ignore the fact that he wasn't alone in the bed, so he took a deep breath and turned to look at the girl asleep with her head on the pillow next to him and felt the oh so familiar rush of guilt and shame as he tried unsuccessfully to remember her name, Lola or Zoe or something like that, if that was even her real name, he neither knew nor cared at that moment, he just wished that she wasn't there with him, and that he wasn't there either. He couldn't believe that he had broken his promise to himself and done it again, but his early flight the next morning for a holiday he didn't want to go on had meant that he had spent the evening before in the hotel bar drinking far too much, knowing, even as he did it, that it wouldn't do anything to help him sleep peacefully without the night terrors, if anything it made them worse. He then almost stood back and watched himself as he picked up some willing stranger and looked for comfort in her arms and warm body, knowing that in the long run that would do nothing to chase away his loneliness and fear.

Slowly his heart rate and breathing returned to normal and the sweat dried on his body leaving him feeling chilly but calmer as he turned off the light, and covered himself with the bed clothes to settle down, allowing his eyes to close and letting him drift back to sleep as he sang Elton John on a makeshift stage in the FOB with a very beautiful girl who was wearing a skimpy black vest and combats as she sang to him, a huge smile on her face as he winked at her, her shiny dark hair swinging around her shoulders as she sang the words, very badly. The squaddies in the audience cheered and whistled and stamped their feet in appreciation and he leaned forward to kiss her cheek as the song came to an end and they marched across a bridge to the back of a truck held at the far checkpoint, 2 section marching alongside him as they went. There was a farmer and his goat standing still and watching them with interest from the other side of the river bed, and there was Smurf waving his weapon around and shouting at him about Geraint and being let down in some way, his face twisted with hatred. He turned away from Smurf and started to scream her name repeatedly and soundlessly as he ran towards her in a horror filled panic, but he couldn't make her hear him and he couldn't run fast enough to get to her in time as Badrai stood up in the back of the truck and opened fire, blowing her off her feet into the air and killing her instantly as he woke up again in the same hotel bed, the tears streaming down his cheeks. He shot bolt upright again, then swung his legs out of the bed and sat on the side for a few seconds before he got up and put the main lights on, the bedside lamp wasn't going to work this time in chasing away the shadows in the corners of the room which were still filled with horrors.

He found his boxers on the floor and pulled them on, then his jeans and 'T' shirt, he had no intention of getting back into the bed, and he certainly had no wish to be naked in a bed or even a bedroom with Lola or whatever her bloody name was, so he turned the main light off and went into the bathroom. Shutting the door and putting the light on he splashed his face with cold water to make sure he was fully awake, if he went back to sleep now previous experience told him that he'd have the last in the trilogy of nightmares where she was dangling under a MERT when the sniper's bullet found it's mark, so he put down the toilet seat and sat on it and shivered with his head in his hands and thought about her. He had the residual low ache in his stomach that always followed these dream filled nights, the legacy of the injury he had suffered on that bridge, although his leg was now pain-free, the exercise of thrashing around in his sleep probably proving to be beneficial.

These dreams had started just over six months ago and he had initially expected them to fade away and stop, given time, but now had to accept that that was not going to happen, the dreams were getting worse and more frequent so that he often found himself reluctant to close his eyes and he had no idea what to do about them, how to go about sorting himself out. He couldn't forget the last time he'd seen her, how they'd screamed abuse at each other, how she'd accused him of letting his bad shit ruin her life and he'd yelled "ditto" so that she'd slammed out and he couldn't even remember now what had triggered their row, apart from the surfeit of emotion that they'd both been suffering from the day after Smurf's funeral. He'd expected her to calm down and come back, and to maybe even apologise to him, but she hadn't and he had gone into a stubborn sulk and then told himself it was probably for the best.

When the nightmares had first started he had decided to look for her, afraid in some deep, dark recess of his mind that something bad had happened to her, that his dreams were telling him something, but she'd vanished, disappeared off the face of the earth, had left the army and no-one knew where she was or what had happened to her. There would be no peace until he knew.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's notes: Thank you for your support. I wrote this in my head yesterday as I tackled a huge pile of ironing, I know if I was any sort of proper housewife I would do the ironing 'as and when' instead of waiting until there's a sodding mountain and no-one's got anything to wear, but after I finished I treated myself to a couple of hours of my addiction on the lap-top as a reward for doing the bloody ironing in the first place.**

 **I started this as two separate one-shots, (I have started working on something else as a story), but obviously the second one follows on from Dreams, so after I allowed myself to finish it this morning because it's been p***ing down with rain since I got up and I deserve another reward for not screaming, I decided to publish it as a continuation, albeit subtitled:**

 **Peaceful Sleep**

'For fuck's sake will you stop telling me what I already fucking know and tell me what to do about it' Charles bit back his angry retort as his well-meaning GP with the reassuring 'nothing to be ashamed of, old chap, can happen to the best of us' manner told him that he was probably suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress. He had chosen not to talk to the army medical people; he didn't want some medic somewhere making a note on his file saying how flaky he was since Afghan and his injuries, not to mention that he could never mention the root cause of his stress, that would have to remain a complete secret. Ten minutes later and he was on his way out of the surgery clutching a prescription for sleeping pills, 'a short term crutch, not a long term solution' the doctor was at great pains to point out, as well as emphasising that they were the mildest and most non-addictive ones available. The doctor had suggested anti-depressants and maybe therapy but had decided they should see whether sleeping properly would help things be more bearable for him as a first step. Charles wondered for a moment whether the doctor thought he'd be tempted to take the whole bottle if he gave him anti-depressants, which he wasn't, any more than he was tempted to take up the doctor's other recommendation of seeing a counsellor or therapist. He couldn't imagine baring his soul to some stranger or even worse, beating himself up for his shortcomings in front of room full of people who were all falling over themselves to share whatever their particular misery was.

He took the prescribed dose of the promised oblivion that night and slept the sleep of the completely exhausted the whole night through, waking up when the alarm went off in the morning feeling muzzy and slightly wiped out and with what felt like a hangover, but then he looked in the mirror and grinned at himself and wondered whether it was too early to celebrate the end of the nightmares. The second night was a mirror image of the first, except that the 'hangover' when he woke up next morning was vastly reduced so that he asked himself why the hell he hadn't done this long before, why he'd put up with it the way he had. Night three saw the return of the bomb blast in the market square, but he couldn't surface enough to chase the dream away, so he kept half waking up in a blind panic then dropping back to sleep again as the nightmare played over and over in a continuous loop.

"Mr Dawes? Are you Mr. Dawes? I'm looking for Molly"

"Fuck off" He paused, and then went on "Who the fuck wants to know, anyway?"

He had toyed with the idea of taking double the dose on night four, then decided to do what he'd always thought of as the last resort. He'd got the address from the local Register of Electors and had made his way to the maisonette in east Ham, climbed up a set of filthy, reeking concrete steps and had then come across the man he was nearly certain was Dave Dawes, her father. He was standing outside on the walkway and Charles would have almost recognised him from her scathing description, he was medium height and slightly overweight with a beer belly, and was standing outside the front door in his underpants smoking a roll-up, the only thing missing was the can in his hand.

"My name's Charles, Charles James and I wondered if Molly was at home"

"Molls don't live here no more, mate, she fucked off and joined the army years ago, and if she owes you money you've got fuck-all chance of getting it here"

Charles realised that his first big mistake was to turn up wearing a blazer, much more casual, or even scruffy, would have been a far better choice, Dave Dawes obviously suspected he was some sort of debt collector.

"No, no, it's nothing like that, I'm an old friend of hers from the army, I mean, I know she left the army some time ago, but I don't have her new address and I wanted to get in touch, so I wondered if it was possible for you to give it to me"

"Don't bloody know it, mate, no idea where she is; you'll have to ask her bloody mother"

"Is she in?" He saw Dave shake his head then went on "When would be a good time to come back and ask her?"

"Don't bloody bother mate, she's fucked off as well" He went in through the open front door leaving Charles standing outside on the balcony looking at him as he closed the door in his face, then opened it a crack to deliver his parting shot "I don't know where she's fucked off to either, but if you find her, tell her not to fucking bother coming back here"

He had been counting on getting somewhere with her family, he'd been holding the idea as a last resort because his subconscious kept telling him that if this door closed he was stuffed, there wouldn't be anywhere else to go and he was also aware of just how devastated he would feel if he came up against yet another brick wall, and now he knew no more than he had done an hour ago when he'd been driving here full of misplaced optimism. He thanked Christ that his car was still where he'd left it and without any visible sign of damage or the parking ticket he'd half expected to find under the wipers, so he sat in the driving seat and tried very hard to re-group and to come up with some sort of plan as to where he could go from here, if anywhere. He was idly watching a girl who was walking towards him on the other side of the road, not really looking at her, more staring into space and seeing her in his peripheral vision, when something about the way she looked or she moved or something drew his attention. For a split second he thought it was Molly as his heart flipped over and his stomach clenched, but it wasn't her, this girl was far too tall and too big to be her, but there was something about her, a look about her, that reminded him so much of Molly that he knew it had to be one of her sisters.

"Excuse me, I wondered….."

"Fuck off" She tossed her head and kept walking so that he wondered if this was the way the Dawes family greeted all strangers.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm looking for ….. ….."

"I said fuck off, didn't you hear me? and if you don't then I'm going to call the coppers, they love nicking posh kerb crawlers"

"Please, honestly, wait a minute, I'm really not a kerb crawler, are you Bella or Jade?"

The girl stopped walking, turned round and looked at him for the first time, but didn't answer his question.

"What do you want?"

"I'm looking for Molly"

"Did you ask him?" She nodded her head in the direction of the maisonette.

Charles nodded "He said he didn't know, that I'd have to ask your mum, I mean, you are Molly's sister aren't you?" She nodded and said Jade as he went on "He said he didn't know where your mum was either"

"He's fucking lying, course he knows, she's shacked up with her new bloke" For a second Charles was scared she was talking about Molly "He's the caretaker at the school what she works at and the tosser knows where Molls is living as well. Why do you want to know where she is anyway? does she owe you money or something?"

"No, I used to know her in the army, but we lost touch and I just want to catch up with her, make sure she's okay"

"She's not in the army anymore"

"I know, if she was still in it would be easy for me to find her, where is she, do you know?"

"Yeah course, she's looking after me Nan. Nan had a stroke and they said she couldn't live on her own no more and there wasn't no-one else, what with Mum pushing off like that and Bella at College and me…. well, I wouldn't be any bleeding good at stuff like that….., so Molls left to look after her, didn't want her to go into an home"

-OG-

He stood looking at the dingy blue painted front door, all the doors along the grubby cream walls of the corridor were the same colour, the only difference between them was the black number above the knocker on each door. He had been rehearsing what he was going to say ever since he'd got in the nasty little lift which smelt strongly of Jeyes fluid with the slight overtone of urine, but now that he was standing there with the door knocker in his hand his mouth was dry and he wasn't sure what he was going to say. He knocked and held his breath as he waited for the door to open.

-OG-

She was crawling on her stomach across a sandy river bed which was mined to buggery and there was a helicopter hovering overhead which was totally drowning out the sound of his frantic yelling forbidding her to go up on the winch as he heard her voice coming from a very long way off, cutting across the clatter of the helicopter as she kept repeating that everything was okay, that he had to wake up, to just open his eyes, that it was a dream and that it wasn't really happening, that everything was fine, that they were both fine. As he surfaced he felt her strong arms round him holding him tightly against her warm naked body as he buried his head in her neck, and felt the hot prickle of tears of relief on the backs of his eyes as she stroked his hair and he started to drift off to sleep again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's notes: This is for all of you who wanted the gaps filled in, who wanted to know what happened when the door was opened, those who wanted to know about Molly's life out of the army or were just kind enough to say that they wanted the story expanded, and thanks to all my 'soul sisters' out there who expressed their solidarity over the issue of ironing, made me feel so much better!**

 **I am subtitling this, for obvious reasons:**

 **Completing the Jigsaw**

I knew that the knock on the door was most probably Vera, it usually is about this time of the afternoon when she comes in to sit with Nan, because she's not only a really good friend to her but she knows that it gives me a bit of a break for an hour or two every day. It's not that I have to be watching over Nan every minute of every day, but I don't like to leave her on her own or with other people for too long in case she needs the loo or wants something else. I wish people, Vera and the rest of Nan's friends and Mum, would stop telling me that I'm some sort of bleeding hero for moving in and taking care of her, who else was going to do it? I know that Mum feels bad because she thinks it should be her, but it wasn't like I had any sort of choice really. Nan always looked after me when I was a kid and she needed someone to look after her now, so if she wasn't going in a home, and that would only happen over my dead body and if Mum wasn't going to do it, well… I wouldn't trust Bella or Jade to take care of her properly, Bella means well but would forget her head if it weren't attached and Jade is just too bloody useless to look after anyone, she don't even look after herself.

Leaving the army was well hard, I was allowed to leave on compassionate grounds, but I really loved what I was doing and I was good at it, but I know I can always go back later when things change, if, or when, Nan gets better or, and I don't want to even think about the other alternatives. The thing I hated most about it all was that it meant that I would never get to see him again; when I was still in there was always the chance that we'd run into one another sometime, some place and then maybe we could forget about the way it all went to shit, I don't even know what happened now. I know that we had a stupid row about nothing and we ended up shouting stuff at one another, accusing each other of things and I flounced off and he never came after me. It was a long time ago now, but I miss him, and sometimes when I'm feeling really sorry for myself, when Nan's had a bad day and I'm tired and fed up and I'd love nothing more than to be getting dressed up to go out with me mates, then I look back to the time I was in Afghan or back in the UK, and even to the time after I split up from him, and I want to cry because I miss it all so much.

Nan's place has six steps up from the end of the hallway to her bedroom and she can't manage them anymore what with her leg the way it is and you can't get a chair lift to go up such a small flight. We tried with a ramp for a bit with her in her wheelchair, but it was far too heavy for me to push and be safe, so we've got a loaner hospital type bed in the lounge with a hoist, which is actually better because it means that Nan isn't shut away from the kitchen, not that she goes in there, but she can feel part of things and watch the telly when she wants and it also means that I can sleep in her bed rather than on the sofa like I used to. It's a bit difficult with the bathroom, I mean it's got no steps but you can't get a wheelchair in through the door, so she's got a commode thingy, and the nurse comes in every other day to help me get her in the shower, so we manage.

We do get out a bit, she's got the wheelchair so we go to the shops where she gets her pension and her fags, I know everyone says she shouldn't smoke, but she don't have anything much else to look forward to, and everyone keeps telling her that they know best what's best for her and not asking her what she wants, so I just ignore it and open the window. She goes to a day centre one day a week and for speech therapy at the hospital, so I do get some time to do other stuff. I want to start an Open University Course next term, and I'm looking on line at the moment to see what there is to do that I fancy having a go at. Everyone keeps saying that I should do something practical, but I think I'd quite like to do English Literature and learn about poetry and plays 'n that. I'd probably find it a pretty bleeding useless thing to do, but I sort of feel like I'd like to.

It was Vera at the door so that means she'll keep Nan company for a bit and I can go on-line and do a bit of looking about, see what's been going on out there in the real world, living here with Nan means that I don't get much time to watch the news or read a newspaper or nothing, Nan can't be bothered to watch the news, she hasn't got a lot of patience with anything at the minute and by the time I get around to reading a paper it's usually well out of date. I do read the local rag, but only to find out which of me mates has been up in court recently and what for, so I suppose you could call that current affairs, maybe?

I'd just logged on when there was another bleeding knock at the door, so I was swearing blue bloody murder under me breath, and getting geared up to give anyone selling anything or any sort of God botherer a bloody mouthful, when I opened the door to the biggest shock I think I've ever had in me life. I just stood there with me mouth open as he stood there and stared at me as if he'd seen a bleeding ghost; I could feel the tears starting to sting me eyes as I shook me head.

"Are you going to ask me in?"

I nodded and stood back as he came past me and stood leaning against the wall looking at me as I closed the door and just stood there, staring at him as if I couldn't believe me eyes, I hadn't said a word since I'd opened the door and I still couldn't think of anything to say.

"Have you got any idea how long I've been looking for you? or how bloody hard you were to find"

"I weren't lost"

"You were to me, and I can't begin to tell you how much I've missed you"

"How did you find me?"

"I went and asked your dad"

"Did you? and he told you?"

"No, he told me to fuck off, but then I saw Jade" He started to laugh "And she told me to fuck off as well" I started to giggle at him laughing, I couldn't help it "Mind you, they both thought I was some sort of debt collector, so they were just making sure I couldn't find you and get my money back" He stopped laughing, leaned forward and tucked a strand of me hair behind me ear "Then she felt a bit sorry for me, so she told me where you were. God, I've missed you"

"I'm glad she told you, I've missed you as well"

"I'm sorry"

"Yeah, I'm sorry too"

The next minute we was hugging and cuddling, and there was nothing sexy about it at all, it was just as though we had to hold onto each other as tight as we could, that we didn't want to ever let go again. I stood up on tiptoes so that I could kiss him and he cupped me face in his hands and kissed me back and then we went back to hugging and holding each other and I think we would have stayed there forever if Nan hadn't called asking who was at the door.

"Come on" I took hold of his hand and pulled him after me into the lounge where Nan was peering at him, she hadn't got her glasses on because they were on the top of her head again, and Vera was gawping as if she'd never seen a bloke before. Mind you, she probably hasn't seen any bloke who was even half as fit as this one.

"Hello" He put his hand out to shake Vera's hand but then bent down and kissed Nan's cheek, saying "Hello Nan, can I call you Nan? I'm Charles, I'm an old friend of Molly's and she's always called you Nan when she's talked about you"

" _Young man you can call me anything you like, and Molls, if I was thirty years younger I'd give you a run for your money, you'd have to watch out"_

"Nan, you're a bleeding disgrace" I giggled and moved back to put my arm round his waist to squeeze him, trying to warn him not to say nothing, because I could see that he hadn't understood a single bloody word she'd said. Sometimes I think I'm the only one, apart from Vera sometimes, who does know what she's saying, her speech is still really bad in spite of the speech therapy which is supposed to be helping "and you can stop encouraging her, she's bad enough without you joining in"

-OG-

I cooked the dinner and he stayed after I'd threatened that if he criticised my cooking he could bleeding well go hungry, so he'd laughed and said "Would I dare?" and I saw Nan beam as he kissed the top of my head. Neither of us really took much notice of what we was eating, we just kept grinning at each other, and by the end of dinner I could see that he was starting to understand a bit of what Nan said, which was a relief because it can be very tiring being a sort of translator without letting Nan see what was happening. I asked him to please wash up because I needed to get him out of the way while I got Nan sorted out for bed, for her to have a pee and for me to get her washed and the bed straightened 'n that so that she'd be comfortable, but I couldn't actually wait to be on me own with him, to talk, because I hadn't got a clue what was going to happen next.

He had his back to me wiping the sponge round and round the sink as if he was scared to turn round and look at me when I got in the kitchen but in the end he looked over his shoulder and asked whether we could sit and have a bit of a chat before he had to go, there was stuff he wanted to tell me.

"Am I gonna want to hear this?" I was shit-scared that he was gonna tell me that there was someone else in his life. He knew what I meant immediately.

"No, it's nothing like that, I promise"

"What then?"

So he told me all about his bloody nightmares and how they'd been scaring the shit out of him for months and how he'd been to the doctor and got sleeping pills which hadn't helped much and how the dreams had been getting worse and how they was all about me in Afghan. He said how in these dreams he couldn't keep me safe or stop what was happening but that he always woke up just when I was dead and how bleeding scared he'd got when he couldn't find me. He told me that me getting killed had been his worst fear back then, so we put our arms round each other and hugged and then one thing led to another until most of our clothes was on the kitchen floor and we went to bed. I think we both needed to be as close as we could get, and I wanted him so much, I'd forgotten just what it feels like to hold him when he's naked and how much I'd missed making love to him.

It was a good job he'd told me about the dreams so that I knew what was happening when he woke me up because he'd started to mutter and thrash around in his sleep, I don't sleep very deep since I sort of have to listen out for Nan needing me in the night. He felt like he was rigid with fear, and he was cold and clammy and pouring with sweat when I put me arms round him and pulled him as close to me as I could because even though his eyes was wide open he was still asleep so I tried me hardest to wake him up. It took a fair while of me keep saying that everything was okay, and that it was just a dream, before I sort of felt him start to relax and he buried his head against me neck until eventually he fell back asleep, but it took a whole lot longer for me to drop off, I was just holding onto him and stroking his hair and trying to stop the dreams from coming back, at least for one night.

-OG-

That was a couple of months ago now and he rings me every day and comes over and stays whenever he can. The dreams haven't gone away completely, but they are getting less and less and he doesn't ever take sleeping pills any more. He's still as bleeding obstinate as ever, refuses to take anti-depressants or to go for any sort of therapy, and it don't matter what I say he don't take a blind bit of notice, not that that means that I'm gonna shut up about it, because I'm not.

We don't talk about what will happen when Nan gets better any more, she says she's too tired to bother with speech therapy or the day centre, that it's all too much of a bleeding effort although she ain't too tired to go shopping to get her fags, typical Nan. She has to be bullied into getting up out of bed for her shower which makes me feel very mean, but the nurse says we have to, we can't let her give up, and I feel very tired because she don't sleep much at night anymore. Charles fixed up this baby alarm thing so that I can hear her if she calls out for me in the night, but when he isn't here I sleep on the sofa in the lounge with her because it's less knackering than keep getting up and going backwards and forwards between her and me bed.

I am so glad he's back in my life because without him I'd be even more worried about what was going to happen, about the future.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's notes: I had the urge to finish the story, (you know me I'm obsessed), so thanks to Debbie for her encouragement.**

 **It would be best to give this a miss if you really hate anything that has any sad or weepy bits in it, I cried at a couple of bits when I read it back and I bloody well wrote it! What a sad case I am.**

 **A Silver Lining**

She knew what had happened the minute she opened her eyes. The early morning sunlight streamed through the gap where she hadn't pulled the curtains properly the night before and as she stretched, she was aware that she'd slept undisturbed all night for the first time in weeks and that the room was filled with a deep and deafening silence. She got off the sofa and went over to put her fingers on Nan's neck to check her pulse, but she already knew before she did it that Nan simply wasn't there anymore. Molly had seen lots of death when she was in the army, but it had always been violent death, full of pain and injury and trauma, and this was completely different, it was peaceful, as though Nan had simply decided that she'd had enough of a life which had become an increasing struggle, a life that was exhausting her. Molly checked the time, 5.38, far too early to start calling anyone, too early to tell all the people that had to be told, but there was one person she wanted to tell more than anyone else so she got a kitchen chair and sat next to Nan, then dialled his number, he wouldn't mind her waking him up.

"I'm on my way" She hadn't had to say a word, he'd known what had happened the minute he'd seen who was calling him at such an ungodly hour "I'll be there as quickly as I can"

"Okay"

"You okay sweetheart?"

"Yep, I'm just not sure what to do"

"Nothing, you don't need to do anything, I'll sort everything when I get there"

She knew he must have broken every speed limit to get there so quickly as she got up to answer the door, she'd simply sat on the kitchen chair next to Nan's bed since she'd rung him and not moved so that she was cold and her back and legs were so stiff that she was walking as if she'd aged twenty years in the last couple of hours. He'd put his arms round her as soon as she'd opened the door, running his hands up and down her back as he tried to comfort her and not letting her go as she tried to move back from him to offer him a drink or breakfast or something. He made the dry-eyed Molly tea and toast which she didn't want to eat, but he stood in front of her with his arms folded, in full 'Boss' mode and insisted that she had to try. He watched her anxiously as she forced a couple of mouthfuls down to make him happy while all the time she felt that she might very well throw it up again at any second.

She sat and watched and listened as Charles made what felt like dozens of phone calls, to his CO asking for compassionate, to the doctor, the undertaker, the Red Cross about the bed, the funeral directors to make an appointment, and she kept hearing Nan say that she'd never known a man who didn't like to **do** stuff, that they were never happier than when they were organising things or people, so that she'd said about Dave who didn't like doing anything. Nan had said that she was talking about a man, not her _dad_ so that they'd both laughed. Charles kept asking Molly what she wanted to do, what arrangements she wanted him to make as Vera and Belinda bustled about with handfuls of tissues pressed to their eyes, and Molly stood impervious to their hugs and tears and solicitous enquiries, she was numb. She'd called Belinda shortly after eight, timing the call to catch her mum before she went off to work and Belinda had arrived almost immediately, pausing only to ring Dave and the kids and then Vera, so that for a short time the kitchen of the flat had been full of people, most of them crying. Molly had remained dry-eyed so that she felt that people had started looking at her wondering why she wasn't joining in, but she couldn't. None of it felt real, she kept expecting to hear Nan's voice from the lounge telling her to get rid of some of them nosy buggers and put the kettle on so that the two of them could have a nice cuppa, she just couldn't believe that her feisty, funny, bloody infuriating Nan wasn't there anymore and that she would never again tell Molly that Charles was a good 'un or ever again give her hell about something, with her tongue firmly tucked in her cheek, so that Molly would laugh and then warn her to shut it because she was a trained killer.

Charles jerked his head in the direction of the door so that she followed him to the bedroom and they sat on the side of the bed as he put his arm round her, kissed her temple and asked if she was okay.

"Don't you bleeding start, I feel like everyone's waiting for me to start bawling or something, but I can't, I'm all over the shop, I keep expecting to hear Nan telling me to get that lot to sod off out of her kitchen"

"I know, it feels strange without her doesn't it?" He squeezed her shoulder "Look, let's just stay in here for a bit, or we could go out for a walk, whatever you want"

"They're coming to take her away, aren't they?"

"Yup, but you don't need to be there, let your mum deal with it" He stood up and pulled her to her feet "Let's go out for a walk, get some fresh air"

She'd surprised him with how much she'd wanted him when they'd finally been alone together after everyone else had gone so they'd gone to bed and she'd clung to him afterwards, obviously desperate for the warm reassurance of his arms and his body as much as he needed hers when he'd had a nightmare.

-OG-

The day of the funeral was warm and overcast, with heavy threatening cloud, it wasn't actually raining but there was no sun either and Charles was worried that Molly still hadn't cried. He'd had to return to duty after a few days and had also been deeply worried that she'd insisted on staying on in the flat on her own, so although she may well have cried when she was on her own there, he really doubted it. She'd refused point blank to go and stay with her dad at the flat in east Ham, and even more adamantly to stay with her mother and her boyfriend.

She'd got really anxious about what hymns Nan would have liked, she kept saying that she'd never known Nan go anywhere near a bloody church or nothing and that she'd had no time for God botherers, that she'd always told them Jehova Witness people to sod off, so she didn't know what to pick. Charles again told her to leave it to her mum and that Nan wouldn't mind what they chose as long as they all turned up and that there were plenty of flowers, at which they'd both laughed at the memory of Nan complaining bitterly about a funeral she'd been to where they'd asked for charity donations instead of flowers, and how bloody cheepskate she thought it was, not a decent send off at all.

He had kept a tight hold on her hand throughout the service, the chapel at the crematorium had been fairly packed which Charles whispered to Molly would have pleased Nan, especially as they all seemed to have sent flowers, but Molly whispered back that she didn't even recognise half of them and that Nan would have suggested that they'd got the wrong service, or the wrong day, or were 'rent a mob', so that they'd both laughed again. At the end of the service the chapel had been full of the noise of people weeping, but once again Molly remained dry-eyed as she'd got in Charles' car and told him that she hadn't changed her mind, she still wasn't going to go to any bloody wake to watch people drink and eat ham sandwiches and could they just get going.

He'd wanted to take her away for a few days, preferably somewhere hot and sunny, because he was sure she needed a break, she'd been running herself ragged for months and then with all the emotion of the last few days, she looked pale and exhausted with dark rings round her eyes, but she'd refused point blank to do that either. He'd only found out yesterday that she was going to be homeless in just over three weeks, he'd never thought about Nan not owning the place or what would happen once the Housing Association wanted the flat back. He'd immediately asked her to move in with him, to live with him, so that she'd giggled and asked him whether the army would mind her sharing his room in barracks or whether they were now doing 'shacked up together quarters'. He'd wanted to say no, but they do 'married' ones, but knew that the timing was absolute shite, so he'd kept his mouth shut and suggested that they look for a small flat to live in while they sorted out what to do in the long term. She'd eventually agreed, but he was aware that her options were pretty limited so he wasn't 100% sure that it was what she really wanted.

Molly had wanted to go to St. Osyth, which he'd never heard of but which was apparently near Clacton, for a walk on the beach and had fallen asleep in the car long before they'd got on the A133 heading east towards the coast, only waking when he pulled into a car park. They'd both taken their jackets off and dumped them in the car as they got out and walked along a deep sandy pathway between hundreds of rows of static caravans towards the sea. Charles took off his black tie and stuffed it in his trouser pocket, then undid his collar and wished he could take his shoes and socks off, the afternoon had turned very warm and still and humid with hazy sunshine and he was baked, he had sweat running down his back, and they were both totally incongruously dressed for a walk at the seaside. Molly's black top and skirt made her look very hot as she stopped and peeled off her tights, not caring who was around, then walked barefoot in the sand as she carried her shoes in the hand that wasn't holding onto Charles and dumped her tights in the first waste bin she came to.

There was a shimmering heat haze over the beach and the sea was flat calm and looked oily under the sun as they stopped and sat on a bench and Molly started to tell him about coming here on her own with Nan when she was eight, just after Bella was born. They'd stayed in one of the hundreds of caravans, she hadn't got a clue which was the right one now, and she could remember spending hours on this beach making sandcastles and paddling in the sea which she remembered as being freezing, with her dress tucked into her knickers and Nan holding her hand with her fag in the other one. She remembered the weather as being sunny all the time, although she had no idea now whether that was true or not, and she remembered eating chips as she'd sat outside the caravan on the little steps as Nan had got ready for them to go and watch the entertainment in the clubhouse in the evening.

As she talked Charles could hear, and then see, that she'd begun to weep so he put his arm round her shoulders and did nothing to try and stop the steady torrent of tears that was pouring down her face as she mourned the grandmother that she'd loved so much, and he felt the prickle of his own tears at the top of his nose and the back of his eyes as she wept.

-OG-

Once the storm had blown itself out and she was at the gulping and sniffling stage and he had put his arms round her for a long cuddle, they started to walk back towards the car, her arm round his waist and his across her shoulders as they smiled at each other occasionally and Charles asked her if she had any idea what she wanted to do next.

"I thought we'd get a drink and something to eat, then go home, why?"

"Not right now, Dawsey, I meant do you want to join up again, go and be a bloody brilliant medic, go and show them how it's done?"

"Don't you want me to stay with you?"

"Of course I do, but you can do both, and you don't have to do Stage 1 again because it hasn't been six years, I've already checked. On the other hand you don't have to decide now, we've got all the time in the world, well at least three years if you don't want to do Stage 1" He stopped walking and turned and looked at her "Then we could get married, and if we got married we'd get 'married quarters' as well, and before you say that they're crap reasons for getting married, they're not the reason I want you to marry me, well not the only reason, you know that I love you and I'm pretty sure you love me too, and I'd love it if we could be stationed in the same place and even live out together if that was what you wanted, so what do you think?"

"I hated stage 1, and I might gonna have to think about us getting married, because I can still hear me Nan saying that I'd need a check-up from the neck up if I didn't grab hold of you with both hands, and I'm sure she'll come back and haunt me if I let you get away" She giggled "I think she loved you almost as much as I do, she was always a sucker for a pretty face"

"Lovely, I take it that's supposed to be a yes?"


End file.
